New spa facilities at Hotel California

Hotel California, one of Panama City’s moderately-priced hotels, which offers excellent value, has added a jacuzzi and gym in the upper stories of its 60-room building on 43rd St. E., Bella Vista. There is a panoramic view of the Bay of Panama and the city from the new facility.

www.hotelcaliforniapanama.com (507) 263-7736.

Road to Chiriquí resort will soon be paved

The paved road will reduce travel time between Boca Chica and David to less than an hour.

The road leading to the Gone Fishing Panama Resort, in Boca Chica, province of Chiriquí, will soon be paved.

The work started in October, with improved drainage.The entire road from the PanAm Hwy to Boca Chica has now been scraped, smoothed and is now ready for asphalt.

The contractor, Ivanel Construction, is working daily on the road, some segments of which have been widened. The entire road can now be traversed by a regular sedan, and 4-wheel drives are no longer necessary.

When completed, the new road will cut the journey to David to less than an hour.

Built by Bern Hotels & Resorts:

New Holiday Inn and hospitality school

Ground-breaking ceremony. From left to right: Thomas Murray, President of InterContinental Hotels Group for the Americas; Alvaro Diago, President of InterContinental Hotels Group for Latin America; Terry McCoy, Manager of Scotiabank; Herman Bern, President of Empresas Bern, and Jorge Arosemena, Executive Director of the City of Knowledge.

The Holiday Inn namebrand will soon return to Panama with the construction of the Holliday Inn Panama Canal. Its builder is Bern Hotels & Resorts, owned by Empresas Bern, one of the country's strongest developers.

The hotel is one of two projects under construction at the City of Knowledge at the former U.S. Army base of Clayton, on the banks of the Canal. The second one is the Panama International Hotel School, which will feature 17 classrooms and labs and the latest technology for hospitality students. The school will be open to Panamanian and foreign students.

The hotel will feature 115 bedrooms, conference halls, a restaurant with capacity for 120 persons, Internet-ready business facilities, gym and all the amenities of a business-class hotel, surrounded by the suburban tranquility and within a short distance from universities, international organizations and foreign embassies.

Both facilities are expected to be finished in 2008.

The Holiday Inn brand is not new to Panama. Its first facility in Panama City opened in the early 1970's and operated for many years in Punta Paitilla. A second hotel, built and managed by Bern Hotels & Resorts, opened on Avenida Manuel Espinosa Batista, downtown, in the early 2000's, although its name later changed to Crowne Plaza.

Bern Hotels & Resorts also owns and manages the Miramar Intercontinental Hotel and the Hotel Suites Ambassador (Panama City), Gamboa Rainforest Resort (Panama Canal area) and the Playa Bonita Resort on Kobbe beach.

Turff Bet & Sport Bar opens three branches

TV screens all round offer constant entertainment – and a chance to win.

Turff Bet & Sports Bar, recently opened two establishments on Vía España, in the heart of the hotel and banking district, and another at the Presidente Remón Race Track, in Juan Díaz.

Turff offers entertainment between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., including betting on live races at Presidente Remón, live international races (New York, California and Kentucky) and hound races in Florida and Mexico, with the aid of giant TV screens strategically located throughout the establishments.

At Turff, visitors can also follow international champion- ships and tournaments of their favorite sport, including American football, soccer, boxing, tennis, NBA basketball, car racing, golf and hockey. Major sports events are considered "holidays" at Turff , which offers specials for patrons, who can also hire the facilities' hall for private reunions, banquets and parties.

Canal remains Panama´s #1 attraction

The Panama Canal is still one of the engineering wonders of the world-the "moonshot" of the Wright Brothers days….

Even by today´s standards it is awesome to see a container ship gliding through massive locks and past a rain forest. Put the Canal in the context of turn-of-the-19th century technology and the feat of its construction is staggering.

The possibilities of a waterway linking the Atlantic and the Pacific in this region had been well appreciated for four centuries before anyone started to dig.

Spain´s King Carlos V ordered a survey of the canal route in 1524 but it was presumably decided that cutlasses would not be adequate for the job.

The French started a canal in 1880 under de Lesspeps, builder of the Suez Canal, but after 20 years of struggle with the jungle, disease, financial problems and the sheer enormity of the project, they were forced to give up.

In 1903 Panama seceded from Colombia and the U.S.A. signed a treaty in which the concession for a public maritime transportation service across the Isthmus was granted. The following year, the U.S.A. purchased the French Canal Company´s properties for $40 million and began to dig. On August 15th, 1914 the U.S. cargo ship "Ancon" made the first transit.

The story of this gigantic task is best told in the book, "The Path Between the Seas", by David McCullough. The story is also told dramatically in the murals of the rotunda of the Administration Building at Balboa Heights.

To see the Canal at work---every year handling more than 13,056 bluewater ships, under the flags of about 70 nations ---go to the spectator stands at Miraflores or Gatun locks. Bilingual commentators there are brimful of information and statistics.

The average toll for ships using the canal is about $48,000.00 but many save about ten times this figure by eliminating the journey round the Horn. Record tolls: Coral Princess which transited for $226,194.25 and Richard Halliburton who swan the Canal in 1926 and was charged 36 cents after his displacement tonnage was calculated.

Miramar Hotel celebrates a decade of service

Mr. Herman Bern, president of Bern Hotels & Resorts, addresses the public during the Miramar’s anniversary party, as his wife, Myriam, looks on.

Prominent members of the country's business circles joined entrepreneur Herman Bern in the celebration of Hotel Miramar's 10th anniversary.

When the three-tower Miramar complex appeared on the horizon a decade ago, they were considered the tallest structures in Central America. Although other buildings in Panama City presently bear that distinction, the hotel, which bears the InterContinental namebrand, has established itself as a true icon. Many prominent figures, including Heads of State and members of royalty have been guests of the Miramar.

Mel Gibson visits Panama

Mel Gibson, producer of "The Passion of Christ" is considering Panama as a film location.

U.S.-born Australian actor Mel Gibson was recently spotted arriving at Panama's Tocumen International Airport, and everything indicates he is joining the hundreds of expats who are buying property all over the Isthmus. It was later disclosed that he hired a helicopter to survey a property he recently purchased in the Azuero peninsula, as well as a luxury apartment in the capital.

It was also revealed that Gibson was looking for locations for an upcoming film on Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean (who became the first European to view the "Southern Sea" standing on a mountain in the province of Darien, in eastern Panama).

Late last year, two other famous actors, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, visited a number of tourist attractions in Panama.